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Hillarys Sailing Team and Matt Jerwood on show at the Mandurah Easter Regatta

Category: General, Front Page Item

31 Lasers on the start line

199 sailors competed at the 2012 Mandurah Easter Regatta. In its 7th year the Easter Regatta has consistently been the best attended, best organised and most enjoyable family and holiday orientated regatta. For an overall run down of the event please read the article attached below taken from the Mandurah Offshore Fishing and Sailing Club website.

There were 31 competitors in the Laser class with 13 4.7ís being the largest fleet. All Laser fleets started together which created big fleet starts which was great practice for our sailors. This should perhaps be done at regattas in WA more frequently. Overall Chris Kelly and his team of Hillarys Yacht Club volunteers ran an outstanding on water event. Congratulations to them all. 10 races were completed in extremely difficult race management conditions.

The 2 notable performances for the event go to Matt Jerwood and the Hillarys Sailing Team. Matt came in 3rd in the Full rig class and gradually improved across the regatta. Matt is a very well credentialed 420 sailor, a national champion in fact and whilst this event was a one off for Matt it was great to see him transfer successfully into an Olympic and Adult class for this event.

Hillarys Sailing Team contributed 13/31 sailors in the Laser class and backed this up with some strong results. Outside of the WAIS squad Hillarys was the dominant club. Matt Wearn who is also a HYC member was 1st in the Fullrigs followed by HYC member Brad Utting in 2nd place. In the Radials outside of the top 3 elite group of Tristan Brown, Mark Spearman and Ben Walkemeyer 15 year old Hillarys Sailing Team members Arrik Fisk 4th place and Sam Tennent 5th place made up the top 5. In the 4.7ís James Stewart from HYC came in 3rd place (2nd WA) beating state champion Connor Nicholas whilst Hillarys Sailing Team members Jack Brett (4th WA) and Marcus Fisk (5th WA) rounded out the 4.7 top 5. All in all Hillarys Sailing Team filled 7/15 Top 5 placings, a performance that canít be ignored. The rise of SOPYC and HYC Laser sailors this season appears to have overtaken previously dominant youth sailors from RFBYC and FSC.